banneryear1868 @ banneryear1868 @lemmy.world

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9

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923

Joined

2 yr. ago

It does take a bit of practice let not gatekeep here /s

It's just based on what other's have said about the Vietnam allegory but it's also whatever, I'm sure Lucas' wasn't thinking of it as a primarily political mission to produce Star Wars, since it's very much a standard plot with your usual archetype characters and roles.

There's a similar fan take on Lord of the Rings too which is interesting.

Very interesting! I knew the Vietnam thing but I'm not into Star Wars.

Yeah that's true and I doubt it costs him much for the production, he's probably just wanting to have a podcast because he enjoys some podcasts and knows they're cool right now. He probably wouldn't even respond to criticism of it beyond, "well you know what if you don't like it don't watch it okaaay, and maybe when you grow up you can enjoy hearing how adults talk and have fun."

Yeah it's not actual communism but more like a reflection of the fears of communism in pop culture from the time when it was written in the late 70s. Comment was a bit inprecise but amended.

Mary Trump is making bank on simply saying Trump is a loser which is hilarious. We all do the same online every day where muh money?!

Star Wars is literally space conservatives rebelling against the galactic communist (1970s US propagandized version of invented communism-fascist aesthetic*) empire...

Firefly is to an even greater degree, like libertarian Browncoats rebelling. I love the fan fic take that the Alliance were the "good guys."

You can see Jeff's enthusiasm melting in his face with every response from Maher. I didn't know he had this level of personal restraint before because I only know him from his roasts. It was soul crushing to see him like this lol

Yeah he always had the antivax views, but the "I believe in science" crowd was content to brush it off because he was big with the New Atheism thing, and it didn't have the significance at the time. He was also a cannabis advocate, in favor of gay marriage, and had many other liberal libertarian opinions that were popular at the time from the Democrat base. I remember seeing his book on the shelf of my educated well-read lesbian friend in late 00s, and I don't know why I remember this because it wasn't remarkable at all, maybe because it was my first exposure to a friend's political opinions rather than it being Maher specifically.

Yeah I dunno how he can look at this and think it's good to release it. He's basically rich and set for life at this point so maybe it's a "because I can" thing.

Jeff saying he doesn't own a gun and Maher just berating him and telling him what the only reasonable opinion is comes off as completely insane.

I mean if you use the same weak password on all websites, even a strong password, it is your fault in a legitimate way. Not your fault for the fact it was leaked or found out or the company having shit security practices, but your fault for not having due diligence given the current state of online security best practices.

Some of the issue in the US at least IMO is how the system turns patients into customers. People do have negative experiences with doctors for valid and invalid reasons, and if they can just pay for a "doctor" who does some BS pseudoscience, they see those credentials and they are getting much more "compassionate" care, they might even feel legitimately better after an experience like that. Doctors I think can become desensitized to patients sometimes or they just aren't good at social skills. Like you have a potentially life threatening tumor removed and ask your doctor why you got it, and they just say "meh you're just unlucky," which is absolutely true, but it's not at all sensitive to the patient's experience to be that blunt. Go in to the happy naturopath office and it's much different, "oh well lets look at your diet to assess your toxicity profile, we can come up with a plan and some steps etc etc." I totally see why people go for that.

I try not to blame people for their choices within this system because despite all the pseudoscience bs that they're paying for there's often perfectly rational reasons behind it, and I fully accept the placebo effect as legitimate. The placebo effect isn't just a trick that works on dumb people it's a very real physiological thing. If people are primed by an incredibly compassionate doctor who practices naturopathy or homeopathy, and despite the financial incentive they have maybe actually cares about the patients, they will actually feel better and it will actually benefit them. That's a huge complication for treating everyone who does this as simply stupid and misinformed, which they may be but that alone wouldn't explain a lot of this.

So blaming stupid patients I don't think helps and I believe the solution to healthcare and the mental health crisis (popular term for it) is ultimately political.

Maher constantly berates his guests like this, you'd almost think it was a skit it's so bad.

Okaaaay new rule. Maher is a great example for how politics has changed in the US the last 20 years, because he definitely hasn't changed (okay maybe in some ways), yet he's almost universally despised by progressives now.

Other comedians are going after him now too, Heidecker and Armisen produced a whole half hour satire of the odd chemistry he has on his "Club Random" podcast. Tim doesn't do the voice impression but it's almost funnier for some reason because of that. This is an absolutely hilarious example of it. "Hey you want some dope?" "Oh yeah sure... lets smoke this joint" "It's not weed stupid it's a CLOVE CIGARETTE." I dunno how Jeff Ross holds it together here, the roastmaster that he is.

Norm was one of the first to really go after him as "one of these comedians who try and be smart instead of funny." His appearances on Maher's show in that video are great, totally ruins what Maher is trying to do and makes the audience and guests crack up.

Outside of unpredictable things like hacks which are bound to happen, always the potential of something with widespread impact, 2024 will be a year of increasing "AI" venture capital investment and some widely used online services are going to pivot or completely rebrand.

I've campaigned for an NDP candidate who was against fptp as many of us are, even our current PM ran on replacing fptp which never happened of course... however we have more than 2 "viable" parties despite not having proportional representation. You can apply definitions to "viable" at your will but they have won provinces quite recently and have many seats in federal and provincial government.

No other system produces viable 3rd parties.

American's lack of knowledge about Canada never ceases to amaze me.

The Democrats are actually way more internally organized now. About 30 years ago during the 90s both parties reached almost unanimous internal ideological consensus' and essentially all vote as a single blocks. The state we're in now with this polarization is part of this, and an example of the increased factionalization of US politics.

It's crazy to think how there were staunch segregationist Democrats in to the 70s even as the party as a whole had been (successfully) catering to younger urban demographics that came alongside industrialization. We can't really imagine something like that occurring now. Even Biden was opposed to bussing and a lot of his "across the aisle" examples even today involve working with segregationist Democrats, not "across the aisle" as we interpret it now.

it's naaatural

I'm curious what cost figure they're using here because the cost seems odd for Canada. I used to work at a pharmacy and insulin is fully covered by public drug plans (there absolutely needs to be a federally public drug plan), I'm thinking of plans like Trillium in Ontario where you pay a deductible based on yearly income. Employer private insurance to my knowledge would cover it to $0, but possibly not the dispensing fee, which is VERY close to the amount listed here. If they are talking just raw cost per vial with no coverage then that's possibly accurate, it's just very rare to actually see that at the register at a pharmacy.

In general I like comparing the US and Canada healthcare regimes because we are pretty much linked to their economy, however seeing where our healthcare over/under performs vs the US you can really link to the differences in the way healthcare is implemented. Broadly speaking we have comparable outcomes, with US and Canada having areas of specialty, however the cost spent by the US on healthcare per capita is insanely higher. People will pad this by claiming that money is because of healthcare research in the US which "the world benefits from at our cost" but the figures aren't often added together in that way. It really is the delivery of healthcare in the US where there are insane costs compared to every other G20 country with detailed healthcare data.